Would it surprise you to know that 89% of people know someone who has been affected by suicide?
Would it surprise you that only 26% of those same people knew the other person was struggling?
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the 8th leading cause of death in Idaho and it is the 2nd leading cause of death for those between the ages of 15–44. On average, one person dies by suicide every 22 hours in the state.
I recently performed a simple survey in order to understand what people knew about suicide, mental health issues and access to help for young people. There continues to be a negative stigma around mental health issues that young people deal with today, without much support or access to tools to help. The basis for my research project is how do we help to eliminate that stigma and provide the necessary tools and education to lower the numbers that continue to rise today.
I personally have been affected by someone choosing suicide as a way out, and I am part of that 74% who had no idea the person was even struggling, that is why this is so important to me. I researched the tools, hotlines and help available to people who are struggling and spoke with counselors and teachers to see if those items were helpful. What I found out was that they knew the tools were there and available, but what they struggled with was the ability to have these crucial conversations with the young people in their lives.
How do we help at least that 51% feel comfortable in helping someone who is struggling?
When I asked if people thought suicide prevention should be discussed in our school systems, 94% said yes, and 92% felt that should be done by a trained professional.
But what if we do not have access to qualified trained professionals, 92% of parents that responded said they would utilize online training materials to help them talk to their children.
So, how do we help? We need to be able to have difficult conversations with our friends, our family and those around us that may be struggling. We need to be able to answer honestly when we pass someone in the hall and they ask us “how are you?”, and not just say “good” and keep moving. And for those that ask that question, you need to be prepared and able to listen and help when the answer is not “good”.
I learned that we need to start having these conversations early and shed a light on the negative stigma of mental health among young people. I also learned that people overwhelmingly support having a trained professional talk with students in a school setting. This gave me hope that if we can find the right people, who can truly reach out and connect with today’s students, we may be able to help them have these crucial conversations with their teachers, their parents and even their friends.
The key, make sure that the people we bring into the classroom, know how to connect with today’s young people. The tools are there, now we need to train those talking about them on soft skills and how to have crucial conversations with young people. I remember having several “guest speakers” come into my classrooms during my middle and high school years, and you can tell which ones knew how to connect to the students and those who just robotically went through the motions to basically check a box. The training is not about the content anymore, it’s about how we connect with people and how we build relationships with young people. Yes, the content is important too, but you can have the best data and all the answers, but if you don’t know how to connect with your audience, nobody will hear you.
Thank you,
Dan Lema
Link to Survey
https://forms.gle/ovuFAZXHZBZfLuSi9
Raw Data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KzgUM8rePrsjtuRpWaqfpp73nTp8mX2pJODBoiotqSs/edit?usp=sharing
Visualizations
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wvQ0E0p_xMb0oJdpnJmvWQZVWKQk2H0RhYXubK2_Svw/edit?usp=sharing